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Monday, 30 May 2016

Mozilla turns Firefox OS into IoT hub

As an operating system, Firefox OS has undergone a massive transformation in the past 24 months – it’s far more than just a web browser nowadays. But now Mozilla is looking to take Firefox to the next level by using it as a hub for a plethora of Internet of Things projects.

Mozilla is currently working on four IoT projects behind the scenes: Project Smart Home, Project Link, Project Sensor Web and Vaani. Each of the projects will deal with IoT technology in different ways, but all are aimed at making the end consumer’s home and devices smarter. In a blog post, Mozilla’s SVP of Connected Devices, Ari Jaaksi, posted: “Everything is connected around us. This revolution has already started and it will be bigger than previous technology revolutions, including the mobile smartphone revolution. Internet of Things, as many call it today, will fundamentally affect all of us.”

Smart Home is pretty self-explanatory, and looks to give users the tools needed to automate some of their home’s basic functions, while still giving more discerning users some useful flexibility in how they adopt it into their home. With Link, users will have a new personal assistant that bridges the gap between themselves and their smart devices. Over prolonged time, Link will remember certain preferences, making it faster and eventually requiring minimal user interaction.

Vaani is the name given to Mozilla’s new voice interface that can be integrated into third-party apps and hardware. To start with, Vaani will recognise simple commands, with a view to catering to more complex statements down the line. Sensor Web is a little different, and relies on a network of sensors to collate crowd-sourced data that will be openly accessible to all. Mozilla will process the data and present it to users to view in their own time.

Many of Mozilla’s outlined projects are very much in their early phases and it’s not known when we’ll see any of these actively in our homes. With Mozilla’s continued development of the Firefox platform, it’ll be interesting to see where its new IoT focus leads it.